November 16, 2005

Tell me something I didn't know

The CIA says that Fidel has Parkinson's disease and that in the next few years he may reach the point where he has trouble governing.

The CIA has concluded that Cuban President Fidel Castro suffers from Parkinson's disease and could have difficulty coping with the duties of office as his condition worsens, an official said Wednesday.

The assessment, completed in recent months, suggests the nonfatal but debilitating disease has progressed far enough to warrant questions among U.S. policymakers about the communist country's future in the next several years.

Hello! Yes, you, CIA! Hey, over here: HE'S SEVENTY NINE EFFING YEARS OLD...of course there are going to be questions about his rule over the next several years.

In addition, anyone who has paid any attention to Cuban politics or the Miami rumor mill and has even the most limited layperson's knowledge of Parkinson's could have made this diagnosis for some time.

When I was in Cuba in 2002 (with the permission of the U.S. Treasury Department, thank you very much) I watched Fidel give a multi-hour speech on television. OK, I didn't watch the whole thing, but came in periodically from drinking beers on the porch to see if he was still going, which he was, and I can't remember now if it was four hours or six hours, but it was a long damn time to be talking about dengue fever and how to prevent it. The thing that struck me was not the length of the speech - he was sitting after all - and not his liver spots, but that in the whole time I watched the speech he never left his hands unsecured for more than a moment. None of this kind of gesture, but plenty of this, this, and especially this. The last one really shows what he was doing, though he did it with a whole hand as well as a finger tip. He also kept folding his hands like this as if he was about to crack his knuckles, essentially holding one hand still with the other.

This looks like just one more of the little tit for tat swipes we take at Fidel, and then he'll accuse the U.S. government being in cahoots with Cuban exiles on wishing him dead:

Castro has long been the subject of rumors of illnesses, including Parkinson's, despite a generally strong physical constitution. Many of the reports up to now have come from the anti-communist Cuban-American community in Florida.

Castro has dismissed them as the work of his enemies who wish to see him dead.

When all else fails, and there's nothing but bad news about lies, corruption, and war...trot out the commies!

Posted by binky at November 16, 2005 10:31 PM | TrackBack | Posted to Latin America


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